Thoughts About Downsizing

When I was in the big corporate world I came to know quite a bit about the subject of downsizing especially in terms of cutting back on people and programs. It was an extremely difficult, gut wrenching process, that literally changed people's lives. Over the years there were different names used but typically the end result was still the same, people lost their jobs. Names were used like layoffs, reduction in force, rightsizing, and attrition but it all pretty much meant the same thing. Today it has become so common that it's more or less a routine part of how businesses operate.

My wife and I are beginning to begin to think about thinking about our own concept of downsizing. Today we live in a two story house with five bedrooms of which two of those upstairs currently serve as offices, one for me, and one for her. This is quite a large space for two people. Therefore, we might consider making a change at some point and time in the future. It would likely be if and when the real estate market became good again. My eldest son was over this past Saturday helping with a number of maintenance issues. This is another consideration for an aging home. In addition to this, we are paying insurance and taxes based on the value of our property and home. So much to think about.

One of the things I have been doing as a way of evaluating all of this has been to look at smaller single floor plans to get an idea of how this all might work. We bought a brand new home in 1971 for $16,999.00. It was either 1100 or 1200 square feet, including the garage. Some of the floor plans I've looked at are in this same size range but the one thing that has jumped out at me is the issue of closet space. In our current home we have a total of seven closets with three of them being fairly large. They are currently stuffed to capacity and I will not comment further other than to say that I could get by with one.

Whenever my wife and I talked about the fact that a downsized situation might only yield a couple of walk-in closets, well, that brought up the subject of what's currently in our closets. Coming out of this discussion I will only say that at this time the only thing we know for sure is that they are all full. We have not determined the nature or ownership of the items in the closets, only that we agree they are all full. However, it's good that we are having these discussions because whenever we do decide, if we do, to make changes, it will involve decisions regarding issues like closet space.

One of the characteristics of my tenure at the big company in doing computer systems was my belief that you find the very best product available that will accomplish the most of what you want it to do, and then you change your environment in order to conform to the purchased program. Many folks objected to this approach because they wanted to modify the purchased software to make it conform to our environment. I learned the hard way that this was not a great solution. Therefore, if we ever decide to go from 2800 square feet back to 1100 square feet, well, we are going to have to change our way of living! We will be like we were when we bought our first house nearly forty years ago. Essentially, back then we fit our lifestyle around the space we had to live in. This is how I see it going forward, but, bear in mind, I'm only 1/2 of this equation, therefore, what the future holds is any one's guess at this time.

I remember a fellow who worked for me and how his parents sold a huge home and purchased one of the big buses like the entertainers travel in to live in. They would travel to different places in the different seasons of the year but what a change! Now that's what I would call the ultimate downsizing project. But it does tell you that it can be done, therefore, we will continue to evaluate our situation and pray that God will direct us to the best solution for us going forward and that He will help us deal with the seven closet challenge when that time comes. Have a great Monday. .........More later.